In this photo (Left to Right) : Denise Baje – Customer Success Manager, GPTW PH, Ada Mae David – Portfolio Manager, Sun Life Asia Service Centre – Philippines, Karissa Huyong – Sales Manager, GPTW PH, Dennis Bocoy – Head of Finance and Operations, Sun Life Asia Service Centre – Philippines, Gaurav Mishra – COO ASC and Site Head ASCP, Sun Life Asia Service Centre – Philippines, May Sunega – Head of HR and Communications, Sun Life Asia Service Centre – Philippines and Doc Anton Lim – Co-Founder/President, Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation
Great Place to Work® Philippines (GPTW) is delighted to collaborate with our community of GPTW-Certified™ companies, in reaching out to disadvantaged communities and provide support to our fellow countrymen who were greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Focusing on our charity of choice, the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation, the GPTW community raised resources to support its Covid-19 response program, called ‘Educational Hub’ or ‘E-hub.’ These e-hubs provide students and teachers in the mangrove villages of Layag-Layag, Zamboanga with laptops, stable internet, printers and supplies that will cater to their education needs despite the limitations the pandemic has brought.
In true ‘Bayanihan Spirit,’ the GPTW community donated three (3) educational hubs to this cause. These three e-hubs are intended to benefit more than 200 Filipino students from these far-flung areas by providing them with access to online education, and more than 30 teachers will now have much-needed equipment to empower and help them cope with today’s new way of teaching.
Great Place to Work® is committed to fulfilling our brand promise, which is to “to build a better world by helping every organization become a great place to work For All™.” We chose to support this meaningful initiative to pave the way for quality education to be made available For All™, especially Filipino children as the country shifts to remote learning.
Apart from the e-hubs, the GPTW community also donated three (3) Yellow Boats, which grants three (3) families from Layag-Layag with a means of livelihood and transportation that can bring their children and neighbors to the nearby Yellow Boat Community Centers.
Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation, a non-profit and 100% volunteer-driven organization so named because of the inspiration lent by yellow school buses, provides Yellow School Boats and other modes of transportation to struggling children so they can get to school safe and dry. It started as a passion project after Jay Jaboneta, who went viral for his video of children swimming across mangroves to reach their school, touched many hearts all over the country, and received an outpouring of support to help them built a boat that will take these children to school.
With the suspension of physical classes since March 2020, Yellow Boat likewise shifted its response by building e-hubs instead.
The challenges brought about by the pandemic gave Yellow Boat of Hope and Great Place to Work® Philippines the opportunity to band together and make valuable and impactful contributions that can better the lives of Filipinos, especially children, recognizing that education is the foundation upon which the future is built.
In the future, these established e-hubs will be converted into learning hubs to further sustain the growing educational needs within the community they are located. It is also a means for the community to stay connected, be up-to-date on current affairs, and have a contact tool for emergencies.
Among the Great Place to Work-Certified™ companies who joined us for this community outreach include Sutherland, DHL Express Philippines, Synchrony Global Services, Ingram Micro, PSG Global, and White and Case. Canva Philippines likewise donated one full e-hub while Sun Life Asia Service Centre-Philippines donated 12 additional printers.
These donations were handed over to Yellow Boat of Hope’s President & Co-Founder, Doc Anton Lim, on March 10, 2021 at Sun Life Centre, 5th Ave, BGC, Taguig. To represent the GPTW community were top executives from Sun Life Asia Service Centre-Philippines, as well as Karissa Huyong, Sales Manager for GPTW and Denise Baje, Customer Success Manager for GPTW.
Karissa Huyong beams with pride as she talks about this community outreach in the recent Philippines Best Workplaces 2021 virtual event, held on March 3, 2021. Karissa shares,
“We, at Great Place to Work® Philippines, are not only here to recognize organizations with a High-Trust workplace culture, but we’re also here to help our local community rise up to challenges. For this year, we have collaborated with our certified companies to support Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation. Their advocacy is to improve children’s access to education and make it easier for them to go and stay in school, especially during this time. There is no better way for Great Place to Work® to fulfill its mission in helping build a community that is better for business, better for people, and better for world.”
Great Place to Work® are the data scientists behind the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list and whose Best Workplaces™ Lists are considered as the Gold Standard of Recognition for over three decades worldwide. We are proud to build a network of certified companies which not only endeavor to do good by their employees by providing high-trust workplace culture, but also by extending a helping hand to communities in need, recognizing that by taking care of our people and taking care of society, we are changing the world for the better.
